Professional athletes of all sports attended Fanatics Fest at the Javits Center in New York City, including Kevin Durant, John Cena, Tom Brady, Eli Manning, Rob Gronkowski, Michael Chandler, Alex Rodriguez and many more. The event spanned three days and had games, interviews and more for sports fans to enjoy.

As is typically the case in the modern era, a big event such as this took social media by storm. While videos of some players on stage or during interviews at the event went viral, Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow went viral for a much different reason at the event.

Taylor Lewan Teases Joe Burrow About Viral Fanatics Fest Video

Burrow participated in a pitching target game at the event, and it’s safe to say he struggled during it. Many would have expected Burrow to excel at that challenge as a professional quarterback, but that wasn’t the case.

As a result, many fans on social media ripped him for the performance. One of those to chime in and roast Burrow was former NFL offensive tackle and co-host of the “Bussin’ With The Boys” podcast, Taylor Lewan.

Lewan took to ‘X’ to say, “Thank you Joe Burrow, thank you.”

Thank you Joe Burrow, thank you.

pic.twitter.com/QQMF3wYU7D

— Taylor Lewan (@TaylorLewan77) June 21, 2025

While many may wonder why Lewan was thanking Burrow, it is likely due to Lewan’s public struggles in throwing a baseball.

In early June, Lewan threw out the first pitch at a Cincinnati Reds game, and like the pitches Burrow was throwing during Fanatics Fest, the results were not ideal.

Taylor Lewan, First Pitch Mechanics pic.twitter.com/AxqzmESufM

— Codify (@CodifyBaseball) June 6, 2025

Lewan’s first pitch was eerily similar to an infamous first pitch at Citi Field by Curtis ’50 Cent’ Jackson. Both are lefties and threw pitches way wide of the plate in a hilariously embarrassing fashion.

“This is the worst day of my athletic career, and that includes the Chandler Jones game,” Lewan posted on social media after the wild first pitch. “I need redemption.”

Lewan and Burrow’s humorous failures to throw a baseball make it clear that just because they are some of the best in the world in one sport does not mean instant success in another. Fans had a great time poking fun at the players, but that doesn’t change anything for these two NFL stars.

Lewan’s legacy is cemented as a three-time Pro Bowl offensive tackle who has since moved on to a successful podcasting career in his post-NFL life. As for Burrow, the two-time Pro Bowler and two-time Comeback Player of the Year will look to lead the Bengals to another deep playoff run after back-to-back disappointing 9-8 seasons that resulted in missing the playoffs.

Fans of a brand new football video game are concerned that game may have already been ruined as a clip has gone viral online.

With almost every club in football currently taking a break during off-season, many fans have been wondering what to do with the spare time now granted to them until the 2025/26 season gets underway.

Thankfully for some, the itch for more football didn’t last long, as Rematch, a brand new online 5v5 multiplayer football video game launched on Playstation, Xbox and PC.

The fast-paced arcade-style game has been an instant success, boasting a stunning peak of 92,841 concurrent Steam players when it launched on June 19.

However, just days after the official launch, some fans have shared concerns that the game may have already been ruined after watching a viral clip online.

Similarly to the massively popular Rocket League, Rematch players are already trying to find new and unique ways to score goals and win matches.

For example, in a now-viral clip posted online, one player discovered that if he continued to head the ball into the back wall of the arena, it would allow his character to float above the pitch.

In doing so it extended the match, which would end once the ball touched the ground, and allowed him to do a nice overhead kick to end the match with a goal that put his team 5-1 ahead.

While many fans have responded positively to the clip seeing the funny side of the ridiculous, yet impressive, moment, others are not happy.

Reacting to the clip on X, one fan wrote: “Coming up with ways to ruin the game.”

Another agreed, adding: “Just play football. The players ruin every game.”

While one claimed: “The sweats have already taken over haha.”

Of course, to almost every player a moment like this would never happen, and it’s clearly not something that is worrying the 47,000+ people currently playing the game at the time of writing.

And overall, the game has been a massive success with critics and fans alike, boasting mostly positive reviews from the 11,915 posted Steam, while sitting with an impressive Metacritic score of 75%.

For fans looking to get involved in Rematch, the price will depend on the edition of the game, with the standard edition costs £19.99, according to Rematch, while the Pro Edition is priced at £29.99 and the the most lucrative Elite Edition costing £39.99.

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Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles has deleted her X account several days after she and former college swimmer Riley Gaines got into a heated online disagreement over transgender athletes competing in women’s sports, the New York Post reported. 

After Gaines, 25, became aware of Biles, 28, deleting her X account, the former said that it was “sad to see such a phenom go down like this.”

“Has an incredibly unpopular and morally indefensible take, gets rightfully ridiculed for it, issues a groveling public apology after unrelenting backlash, deletes account to pretend it never happened,” she added.

Biles’ other social media accounts are, however, still up and rinning. As previously reported by Face2Face Africa, Gaines has been a staunch advocate for the introduction of policies to control the involvement of transgender women in competitive female sports. Gaines embarked on that campaign in 2022 after she and former University of Pennsylvania transgender swimmer Lia Thomas both finished fifth in a 200m freestyle race. 

Transgender athletes being allowed to participate in competitive women’s sports has also been a hugely debated topic that has drawn divergent sentiments, and that was what sparked the initial online disagreement between Biles and Gaines. 

Biles deleting her X account also came after she rendered an apology to Gaines on the social media platform following their online feud. 

“I wanted to follow up from my last tweets. I’ve always believed competitive equity & inclusivity are both essential in sport. The current system doesn’t adequately balance these important principles, which often leads to frustration and heated exchanges, and it didn’t help for me to get personal with Riley, which I apologize for,” Biles wrote in her post. 

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Biles also stated that the issues in question are “sensitive” as well as “complicated,” and she “truly” doesn’t have the “answers or solutions to, but I believe it starts with empathy and respect.”

“I was not advocating for policies that compromise fairness in women’s sports. My objection is to be singling out children for public scrutiny in ways that feel personal and harmful,” she added. 

“Individual athletes—especially kids—should never be the focus of criticism of a flawed system they have no control over. I believe sports organizations have a responsibility to come up with rules supporting inclusion while maintaining fair competition. We all want a future for sport that is fair, inclusive, and respectful.”

The Olympic gold medalist’s statement came days after she called out Gaines when the former college swimmer responded to a post from a Minnesota high school softball team with a pitcher who is transgender. 

“To be expected when your star player is a boy,” Gaines quoted on the post to highlight the comments being turned off. 

But Biles took issue with her comments and also directly addressed her. “You’re truly sick, all of this campaigning because you lost a race. Straight up sore loser,” Biles wrote. “You should be uplifting the trans community and perhaps finding a way to make sports inclusive OR creating a new avenue where trans feel safe in sports. Maybe a transgender category IN ALL sports!! But instead… You bully them… One things for sure is no one in sports is safe with you around!!!!!”

Biles in another post also wrote, “Bully someone your own size, which would ironically be a male.”

Gaines also fired back. “This is actually so disappointing,” she told Biles in her response. “It’s not my job or the job of any woman to figure out how to include men in our spaces. You can uplift men stealing championships in women’s sports with YOUR platform. Men don’t belong in women’s sports and I say that with my full chest.”

Despite their initial online spat, Gaines accepted Biles’ apology. “I accept Simone’s apology for the personal attacks including the ones where she body-shamed me. I know she knows what this feels like. She’s still the greatest female gymnast of all time,” she wrote on Biles’ post.

Elsewhere in her long post, Gaines said that “women’s sports can’t be used as an excuse for girls to center the feelings and validation of men and boys.” She added: “I welcome you to the fight to support fair sports and a future for female athletes. Little girls deserve the same shot to achieve that you had.”

READ ALSO: Nigeria: Popular female transgender celebrity Bobrisky serving sentence in male prison

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A college football player became one of the most-talked about NCAA athletes over the weekend, but not because of his stats.

Bowling Green University linebacker Gideon Lampron went viral on social media after fans learned his legal middle name is ESPN. His family pronounces it “Ess-pen,” but his dad admits he chose the unusual name (written in all capital letters) as a tribute to the Disney-owned sports channel (originally named the Entertainment Sports Programming Network).

Gideon’s father, Marty Lampron, told the Dayton Daily News that he chose “ESPN” because he’s a big sports fan. However, he didn’t get his wife’s approval when he put the name on Gideon’s birth certificate — she wanted the middle name to be Xavier and said “no” when Marty suggested ESPN.

“I grew up in Boston. I went for months trying to talk my wife into letting me name him Larry Bird. It didn’t go well,” Marty told the Dayton Daily News in September.

“Then she delivers Gideon, and she’s out of it and the nurse comes for me to sign the birth certificate. When I signed it, I literally printed ‘ESPN’ in capital letters. She was out cold when I did it. When she woke up, I told her I did it, and she said, ‘No, you didn’t.’ She didn’t realize I did it. She wasn’t happy with me.”

Gideon ESPN Lampron, a junior LB from Keystone, Ohio, transferred to Bowling Green this spring after spending the past three years at the University of Dayton. According to Total Pro Sports, he started as a zero-star recruit in FCS and redshirted the 2022 season, but made 51 tackles in 2023 despite only starting once. He finished the 2024 season with 99 total tackles, including 56 solo, plus 6.5 sacks and two forced fumbles, earning him Football Championship Subdivision All-American First Team honors and offers from FBS schools, including Kent State, UTEP, Eastern Michigan, Ball State and Bowling Green.

Lampron’s weird middle name got attention from Yahoo Sports, Barstool Sports, and other publications, but he’s hoping he can live up to his lifelong association with “The Worldwide Leader in Sports.”

“I want to make my dad proud, because him making my middle name ‘ESPN,’ it has set some expectations. I am just trying to deliver,” Gideon told The Morning Journal in September. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Some of my friends would laugh. I never really hid it, I just never talked about it ever. Now, this is something that my friends are finding out. I have it on my Instagram and (X). I love (my middle name).”

Azzi Fudd has been all about former teammate Paige Bueckers, but on Sunday she was about another player — one Bueckers and the Dallas Wings were going up against.

Fudd, 22, and Bueckers, 23, were inseparable on and off the court for the UConn Huskies, winning the school’s first national title since 2016 and then hitting their TikTok dances off of it.

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While Fudd decided to return for another season, Bueckers entered the WNBA draft where she went No. 1 overall to the Wings. There supporting her on the big night was Fudd, who looked unrecognizable with a glam makeover, and then wowed in her shiny black cocktail dress for the draft after-party.

Over the weekend Fudd made headlines for a selfie post that showed her iPhone cover in the mirror where it said, “Paige Bueckers’ girlfriend’ on it, hinting they could be more than just besties. She also was seen posing in a Wings No. 5 Bueckers jersey for Friday’s game in Connecticut.

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She certainly wasn’t wearing a Bueckers jersey on Sunday while the Wings traveled to play the Washington Mystics as Fudd was spotted in another rookie’s No. 8 Mystics jersey, Georgia Amoore.

It’s unsure what they connection is between the two is as Amoore went to Virginia Tech. She was drafted at No. 6 overall.

It was the right fit too, as the Mystics were on the winning end, 91-88.

No doubt it was all in good fun and to support the women of the WNBA and not a slight at “girlfriend” Bueckers. Those two are still quite the team.

— Enjoy free dish of rich and fabulous players with The Athlete Lifestyle on SI —

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It’s a make-or-miss league, and so much of the reason the Pacers have unexpectedly extended the Thunder to a seventh game has been that the Thunder have simply shot much worse than their regular-season averages.

Bizarrely, an Oklahoma City team that played at a huge free-throw deficit all season has won three free-throw battles decisively. The Thunder have also won the possession battle, albeit by a lower margin than their norm, and are shooting just as well from 3 as the Pacers.

Alas, their three best players have been firing blanks inside the arc. Credit to the Pacers, who have forced OKC’s two All-Stars into a lot of tough middies and have used Myles Turner to almost totally neutralize Chet Holmgren in the paint.

Still, the deficits from their norms are pretty massive. In the regular season, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander shot 57.1% on 2-point shots, Jalen Williams shot 53.3%, and Chet Holmgren shot 54.7%. And through three rounds of the playoffs, those figures hardly deviated.

But in the finals? Those three are at 50.9%, 50.0% and 43.1%, respectively. Because that trio takes the vast majority of the team’s 2-point attempts, they account for the overall malaise of the Thunder offense inside the arc in this series.

Yes, Indiana’s defense has been a factor, but the “play better’ adjustment also looms large here. The Thunder’s three stars have had their share of good chances — the 7-1 Holmgren missed an open dunk in Game 6! — and just need to convert more of them.

Either that … or shoot more 3s. The 2-point struggles have been unsecured by the fact the Thunder have only taken 27 3-pointers per game, a far cry from the 38.9 they launched in the regular season, thus leaving Oklahoma City even more dependent on 2-point accuracy than ever.

So while I have my eye trained on Holmgren, in particular, to see if he can end the slump, I’m also watching the Thunder rotation and wondering about Isaiah Joe. The team’s most prolific 3-point attempter in the regular season has seen just 41 minutes of court time through five games. Could he Mark Daigneault’s X factor in the finale?